

SHALL AMERICA 
GO BACK? 


By COMMANDER 
EVANGELINE BOOTH 


PAPER READ BEFORE THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE 
NATIONAL WOMAN’S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE 
UNION, HELD AT PHILADELPHIA, PA., IN 
WHICH THIS QUESTION IS ANSWERED 
FROM THE HEART OF THE 
PEOPLE 



THE AMERICAN ISSUE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

WESTERVILLE, OHIO 











COMMANDER EVANGELINE BOOTH 


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Shall America Go Back? 

By COMMANDER EVANGELINE BOOTH 


W E are assembled today for the consideration of a question of 
immeasurable magnitude—a question that is perhaps of all most 
vital to universal righteousness—to which cause our prayers and 
our powers are dedicated—for among the formidable foes of 
human weal there is none so insidious, so implacable, so utterly execrable as 
intoxicating drink. 

This question, “Shall America Go Back?” suggests an investigation of 
the progress of prohibition. I am aware that from a technical standpoint 
the phrase may be open to criticism, because the very word prohibition is a 
word of finality. 

It has been progressive in its onsweep through the years. Review invites 
one at a time like this. 

Away back in the forties Abraham Lincoln wrote: 

“Of our political revolution of 76 we are all justly proud. In it was the 
germ which vegetated, and still is to grow and expand into the universal 
liberty of mankind. 

A STRONGER BONDAGE BROKEN 

“Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it we shall find a stronger 
bondage broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed; in it 
more of want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow assuaged; by it no 
orphans starving, no widows weeping; by it none wounded in feeling, none 
injured in interest. 

“And when the victory shall be complete—when there shall be neither 
a slave nor a drunkard on the earth—how proud the title of that land which 
may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both these revolutions 
that shall have ended in that victory!” 

I feel Abraham Lincoln’s spirit is here this afternoon. Shall America 
go back? 

Every step of the way has been contested. Ever since December, 1917, 
when Congress favorably acted upon the resolution recommending the 
Eighteenth Amendment, powerful and sleepless foes have sought to make 
it ineffective. Despite this organized and persistent opposition one by one 
the States fell into line until little over a year later the thirty-sixth State 
ratified the resolution, and so made possible the President’s proclamation. 

During the year that by law preceded the enforcement of the Amendment 
the air was filled and the public fed with the most dismal predictions. We 
were to see disaster in almost every conceivable department of life. The 
Government would go into liquidation because of the loss of taxes. Real 
estate would slump in value because of the closing of the corner saloon. 
Starvation would come to large numbers because of the drying up of their 
source of living. Crime would become rampant because of the desperate 
appetite and unleashed passions of the outlawed. Social life would lose its 
zest for lack of stimulanting help. The very religion of the people would be 
embarrassed because sacramental wine would be unavailable. 

[ 3 ] 



NO SIGN OF BANKRUPTCY 

What utter nonsense these vain predictions have proved to be! Our 
Government has shown no signs of bankruptcy. It is delivered from its 
unholy alliance with blood-money as one of its sources of support and is 
apparently unembarrassed by the saving of five billion dollars. The corners 
vacated by saloons are not desolated wastes, but are occupied with profitable 
and reputable business. 

Take the case of Packingtown, the dwelling section behind the stock- 
yards of Chicago. W. F. McDermott says that the famous automobile rows 
of the Metropolis of the West must look to their laurels now that Packingtown 
has become a strong competitor. 

But Packingtown’s motor row is more than just an evidence of prosperity. 
Back of if Ties a story of the evolution of a community. 

In the old days the back of the yards district had its “Bucket of Blood” 
saloons and the famous whisky row, in shootings and sprees and revels and 
carousals, its woeful women and terrified children. Today it would be hard 
to find a community where, in spite of hard times, children have more 
laughing eyes, are better dressed or men and women more prosperous-looking. 

About fifteen saloons of the old “whisky row” have given place to the 
splendid Packingtown Day Nursery. Drug stores and barber-shops have 
entered into other vacated saloon quarters, and the automobile salesrooms 
have become the centres of interest. The brass rail of the saloon has given 
place to the running board of the automobile. 

AMOUNTS TO A REVOLUTION 

From the social standpoint the change amounts to a revolution. Money 
spent on liquor now goes—at least a substantial part of it—for gasoline. 
Formerly it meant deprivation and often cruelty for the family. Now it 
means healthful recreation and the cementing of the family ties instead of 
the destruction of them . 

Saturday that used to be the dreaded day, because pay day, is now the 
glad day. Every Saturday afternoon there are happy parties en route for 
the country. Father, mother, children, grandmother—sometimes four genera¬ 
tions, gleefully chugging along in the “family Ford.” 

look at the evidences of prosperity. There are ten million automobiles 
in the United States. Every tenth person is said to own one. A car for 
every two families. 

More building of homes than ever before, despite exorbitant prices. Work¬ 
men of all trades erecting homes that cost ten, twelve, and even fifteen 
thousand dollars. 

In other sections of Chicago which were made unavailable for high-class 
retail trade because of the blight of the saloons, department stores have 
sprung up catering largely to the needs of women and children. Just 
outside the Loop on Lower State Street, splendid locations were formerly 
occupied almost uniformly by low class saloons, girl shows, lady barber 
shops, fake auction establishments and similar places. A recent investigation 
shows that since prohibition this section is developing at a remarkable rate. 
As an instance, Hinky Dink’s Workingman’s Rest Saloon formerly paid $150 
rent for the four-story building. Since prohibition closed this saloon $500 rent 
is paid for the first floor alone. 

RESTORATION OF VALUES 

But the building up of realty values in Chicago has been of little sig¬ 
nificance in comparison to the restoration of human values. Here is the 

[4] 


testimony of the Superintendent of Oak Forest Institution which formerly 
cared for the poor unfortunates of the lodging house district: 

“The advent of prohibition undoubtedly has much to do with the shrink¬ 
age of our population. A large percentage of our inmates came right from 
the lodging house districts and were heavy drinkers. In the days when 
liquor was cheap and lunches were served in saloons free of charge these 
men were but little interested in caring for themselves outside of living 
from hand to mouth. Temporary breakdowns in their physical and mental 
conditions were of frequent occurrence. The infirmary’s doors were open 
and they flocked hither in great numbers. They came for repair and they, 
received it. However, about the time the price of liquor began to soar, and 
as saloon free lunches no longer were spread, there was a noticeable lessening 
in the arrivals at the institutions. The squandering of earnings, meagre as 
they might be, was halted; physical and mental breakdowns became a thing 
of the past and the habitual poor-house guests no longer sought shelter here.” 

Our brewer friends—with those employed in allied trades—have none of 
them died of starvation, even though some of them might have expressed 
fears of so doing, like the saloon-keeper’s wife who asked in despair: “What 
in the world will we do if prohibition comes?” and the washerwoman 
replied: “You can have my job then.” 

“Prohibition has taken the ‘wash' out of Washington. There were in 
this city in one year before prohibition 180 husbands committed for non¬ 
support and only 18 in 1921. Wives no longer have to wash for a living.” 

As to prohibition causing non-employment, take the case of Peoria, Ill., 
formerly known as the whisky centre of the world. Thirteen of her distilleries 
which once employed 1,000 men in the manufacture of alcohol now employ 
V000 men manufacturing thirty different useful products such as stock-feed, 
wH*at flour, cane syrup, jellies, jams, etc. 

As for crime, it is certainly no worse, but vastly decreased now that the 
chierflotbed and incubator of crime, the saloon, no longer swings its open 
doors.X 

The effect can be seen in the figures supplied by twenty-five of our 
largest ci\es in the United States. These show that for all causes there was 
a reduction of over one hundred and twenty-two thousand arrests. 

In thes\ same cities in the same periods there were 441,859 arrests for 
intoxication gainst 216,115. A decrease of over one-half. 

VISITOR FOUND JAIL EMPTY 

A visitor froVi Australia found that in Pittsburgh, Pa., in the County Jail 
315 cells were em^ty, and that in Seattle, Wash., only 95 persons were in 
prison where there yere accommodations for 300. 

Judge Gemmill, df the Chicago Municipal Court, has said: “I have col¬ 
lected prison statistics\for the last seven years in several of the leading 
States, and everywhere fl^e number of prisoners has decreased since prohibi¬ 
tion. I have not found a single State nor a single prison where there was 
not a marked decrease in th\ prison population in 1919 and 1920. In most of 
the States there was an increase in 1921 over 1920, but with that increase 
the population is still twentyW twenty-five per cent less than it was before 
the war, and in eighty per ce\t of them the number of prisoners has been 
reduced from fifteen to eighty W cent.” 

MUST REMAIN ON BATTLEFIELD 

Remember that the wets andjwet newspapers never compare dry years 
with wet years. When they sar crime has increased, drunkenness has 

[5] 



increased, etc., they purposely give years which do not show the before and 
after effects of prohibition. The 1921 figures are a warning to us that we 
need more, not less, prohibition. They prove what I have already said that 
we must remain on the battlefield to defend to our last energy what we have 
gained. 

As we turn to the Homes for Inebriates, we find that in the Washing¬ 
tonian Home in Chicago, the oldest institution of its kind in the country, 
in one year before prohibition it admitted 1,620 inebriates. It is now closed. 

The Neal Institute for Alcoholics reveals the same story. In 1910 68 
such institutions in the country cared for 125,000 patients. Now they are 
almost all out of commission. 

Alcoholic Ward in Philadelphia General Hospital: 

1918.. 2,320 

1921... 702 

Admitted to Ohio Hospital for the Insane: 

1911 eleven and eight-tenths per cent of admissions attributed to alcohol 
and drugs. 

1921 two and seven-tenths per cent. 

Is this not an all-convincing answer to the unwarrantable complaint that 
prohibition has increased drug addicts? 

ARRESTS FOR DRUNKENNESS DECREASE 

In a letter of Judge Gemmill to Gifford Gordon, of Australia, he wrote: 

“There has been a decrease in the number of persons arrested in America 
for drunkenness of over 600,000 per year. This figure is based upon the 
figures I have in my possession for all the largest cities in the United States 
In most of these cities the decrease is from 100 to 400 per cent.” 

The bodies which hold those precious souls which The Salvation A'hiy 
is pledged to save are our special care. Wonderful and beautiful a= are 
the physical features of God’s creation, what are its greatest w jn ders, 
mountains and seas and stars and valleys, in comparison to mai—God’s 
greatest work—man—God’s best, created after His image, earth His foot¬ 
stool, Heaven His Home—God his Father, eternity his lifetime? Should 
not the goal of every government be to legislate to the li^iit to keep 
hurt and breakage and destruction from him? Must we not, therefore, re¬ 
joice when we read such testimony as that given b/ Pr. Haven 
Emerson in “The American Review of Tuberculosis” in Aine, 1922: “In 
the last fifty years the tuberculosis death rate only fell <eventy-seven and 
nine-tenths per cent. In the last eleven yeaj-s the de^h rate only fell 
fifty-one per cent. In the single year of 1921 the death »ate fell eighteen and 
one-tenth per cent. The greatest factor in this rapid decrease is lessened 
expenditure for alcohol and more for food, lessened aboholism with improved 
conditions of the poor.” 

Think what this signifies in the homes of tte incipient or would-have- 
been consumptive! Think of the anxiety, the vaste, the suffering, the con¬ 
tamination of young children, all saved because the saloon is gone and the 
nation has outlawed the disease-breeding liquo' traffic! 

WHISKY AND PNEUMONIA 

Here is a startling medical testimony ?s to the effects of prohibition on 
pneumonia. Remember how liquor advocates cried “Shame!” because we 
would deprive the poor pneumonia patient of his life-saving whisky! In “The 
Journal of the Medical Association” of Jjly 28, 1922, discussing pneumonia, 
Dr. Alexander Lambert, New York, says: “There has been a great change 

[ 6 ] 




in the pneumonias in New York City. When we had all the alcohol that 
was desired in life in Bellevue Hospital one-third of the 40,000 patients were 
in the alcoholic wards with or without delirium tremens. That made a 
strong alcoholic group among pneumonia patients and the death rate was 
sixty-six per cent for the alcoholic and twenty-three per cent for the non¬ 
alcoholic group. The type has changed. One does not see the thoroughly 
poisoned, chronically soaked alcoholic person in the hospital. The change 
in pneumonia has also been distinct. We had two wards of fifty patients 
each; in one group alcohol was given, and the death rate was forty per cent; 
in the other group alcohol was not given, and the death rate was fourteen 
per cent.” 

Dr. Russell L. Cecil, New York, says: “The Change in the pneumonia 
death rate of which Dr. Lambert spoke is a striking thing. In Bellevue 
Hospital the death rate before prohibition was from forty per cent to fifty- 
five per cent; but the present death rate is only twenty-eight per cent.” 

Now our adversaries declare they have a case against prohibition. In the 
indictment there are several counts. 

First, they say: 

“Prohibition was surreptitiously secured.” 

They say that the Congressional resolution was passed and the ratification, 
under process while “the boys” were overseas, and that but for this fact 
it never would have been possible. While this allegation, because of its- 
repetition and somewhat widespread belief, has been frequently and com¬ 
pletely denied, let me cite the facts, with which many may not be familiar. 

OVERWHELMING DRY MAJORITY 

Who adopted prohibition? The people themselves through their repre¬ 
sentatives in Congress and State Legislatures. In Congress 347 votes were- 
cast for submitting the Eighteenth Amendment to the State Legislatures 
for ratification and 148 against. In the forty-six States out of the forty-eight 
which ratified the Amendment 5,084 votes were cast in the State Legislatures- 
for ratification and 1,263 against it. The total vote was seventy-nine per 
cent for ratification and twenty-one per cent against. 

You can impress the whole situation on your mind by remembering that 
prohibition was “put over” by only forty-six of the forty-eight States in the- 
Union with only ninety-eight per cent of the population and only ninety-nine 
and three-fourths per cent of the area of the United States. To sum up, 
only two small States—Connecticut and Rhode Island—refused to ratify. Pro¬ 
hibition could have been no surprise to the country, for thirty-three States 
were dry by State enactment and eighty-seven and eight-tenths per cent of 
the area and sixty and seven-tenth per cent of the population were under 
license law before the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect. How' 
ridiculous to say that this was secured by surreptitious means! 

DRINK ALWAYS LAWBREAKER 

The second count in this indictment is: 

“Prohibition does not prohibit.” 

It is rather strange that our enemies blow both hot and cold. We hear 
much about the drastic nature of the Volstead Act. It seems to prohibit 
overmuch, and our friends say: “We would be satisfied if they would allow 
light wines and beers.” Then with almost the same breath they sayr 
“Prohibition does not prohibit.” If it doesn’t then the “wets” are well served. 
But they know it does, and that every time they slake their thirst with the 
forbidden beverage they are breaking the law. This, in the drinkers’ realm, 

[7] 


may not be looked upon as particularly bad, but then drink is always true 
to form, and in the days when it was legalized its devotees were the most 
flagrant breakers of the law in the land. Drink will not be regulated. Its 
law-breaking proclivities are not new, but are as old as history; be they 
laws of nature or laws of nations, laws of health or laws of home, laws 
of mind or laws of morals, the drink stands condemned—the red-handed 
criminal, the greatest law breaker in the land. So it is no new role for it to 
assume when its apologists cry: “Prohibition does not prohibit!” 

That there are violations of the law, all. admit, but to cite that fact as 
an argument against the prohibition law is as futile as it would be 
to demand the cancellation of the whole decalogue because of repeated 
infraction of that law which is fundamental to all jurisprudence. We 
of the Salvation Army aspire to order our lives by the standard of 
these Ten Commandments, and to persuade others to do the same, and it 
would be about as sensible to engage in an effort to expunge that code 
from the Book of God because of its non-fulfilment in lives of men as it 
is to advance the theory that the Prohibition Law is a failure because it 
does not prohibit. 

AMENDMENT MUST STAND 

Because of the laws against arson, theft and murder are being violated, 
shall we abandon these laws and their penalties? Certainly not; and by the 
same token the Eighteenth Amendment and its supporting law must stand. 

The third count in this indictment is: 

“You cannot by law make men moral.” 

This statement cannot survive the acid test. Its reasoning is fallacious 
and its implications untrue. 

The statement that morality is divorced from law is not true. Moral 
conduct is the aim and end of law. That is the meaning of law. Its enact¬ 
ment and administration has good conduct for its objective, and while con¬ 
duct may at times be governed by a fear of penalty, law is still universally 
recognized as necessary to the existence of well-ordered society. When 
people say: “You can’t legislate people into good morals,” I reply: Into the 
whole fabric of our nation’s law is woven the ethical element, and any law that 
violates a correct moral standard is foredoomed to dishonor and its repeal 
is certain. By this test the old liquor-license laws were tried and condemned 
and ultimately superseded, and I feel quite happy in the realization that the 
same searching trial will reveal to the whole world the soundness of our 
nresent legislative position. Meanwhile depopulated prisons and rebuilt 
homes witness to the fallacy of this argument advanced against prohibition. 

The fourth indictment is: 

“Prohibition invades personal liberty.” 

Into this supposed tower of refuge probably more of our opponents run 
than any other, and from its flimsy ramparts they fling the cry: “Prohibition 
invades our personal liberty by presciibing what we shall eat and what we 
shall drink; and we deny any man’s right to prescribe our plum pudding or 
our exhilarating cup.” 

The principle, basic to the restraints of all law, is precisely that which 
enters into the Prohibition Law. No man objects to the denial of his liberty 
to steal; anyway, he doesn’t object to the curtailment of his neighbor’s liberty 
in this direction; therefore he should intelligently accept the application of 
this same principle to that house-breaking, home-destroying, child-abusing, 
business-wrecking thief, Alcohol. 


[ 8 ] 


that which every 
liberty apart from 


NO OTHER CONSISTENT COURSE 

Liberty, true liberty, is a priceless heritage, but no man’s liberty com¬ 
prehends a right to strike another down—not even if that other is his own 
child. In the exercise of society’s right to protect itself the nation came to 
an appraisal of the monstruous wrong that was perpetrated upon it by the 
permission of the drink traffic. The process toward that evolution was slow 
and tedious, but the final appraisal was correct—correct politically, correct 
economically, correct scientifically, correct socially and correct morally. With 
the soul of the people awake to this solemn fact there was n0 consistent course 
possible but for the nation to wash its hands forever from) the cruel partner¬ 
ship that had dishonored it, and refuse longer to traffic iri homes, in happi¬ 
ness, in health, in the very lives of its cchildren. To spealj this holy purpose 
our nation flung her starry pen across the Federal books apd by strictly con 
stitutional means wrote into the organic law of the lane 
officer and every citizen is pledged to support. There is nc 
law. There is but one alternative—anarchy. 

TEST OF RESPECT FOR LAW 

What about the enforcement of law? 

That splendid American, the Honorable Charles E. Hughes, Secretary of 
State says: “Everybody is ready to sustain the law he 
in the proper sense respect for law and order. The test 
is where the law is upheld even though it hurts.” 

Law must be, and must be obeyed. Yet there are thdse who argue that 
the breach of the prohibition law is excusable. Some say it\is laudable, while 
others are defiant and make it their business in life to forward their sinister 
work of doing those things that the law prohibits. Ther 
go still further, and in their wild thirst for gain the lives 
count not, and murder is added to fraud, when they trade ut>on the weakness 
of their fellows and for fabulous prices sell deadly poison. 

When I begin to analyze the crowd opposed to prohibition I must con¬ 
fess I am impressed neither with their quality nor their reasoning. Clean 
and loyal citizens, opposed to prohibition, place their reputation in jeopardy 
by such association. How sorrowful that opposition to prohibition has united, 
as in a great dragnet, the good and the bad, so that the respected citizen and 
the professional brewer are cogitating and co-operating together for the 
repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. But—“they shall nor pass.” 

The prohibition law sprang from the soil and soul, jt germinated in 
remote and sacred places where mothers pray and fathers thijk. The country 
church, the country W. C. T. U., the country home and schAol took the lead 
—the West far in advance of the East. Long and wearisolne has been the 
struggle. Shall those who fought and gained it never go pack? “Kansas,” 
William Allen White says, “ and States of her tradition and per kind would no 
more lose their forty years’ fight for prohibition than they Would lose their 
four years’ fight against slavery.” 

COMPROMISES ARE BANE \ 

There are those that pronounce themselves in favor of fcght wines and 
beers. They are the “happy medium” folk. To them the Prohibition Amend¬ 
ment is good, but its enforcement is bad. Their cry is “Modify.” Their 
name is legion. According to a recent independent poll, the niinber of these 
“would-be” modifiers nearly equals the number of those wha support un¬ 
qualifiedly the Amendment and its supporting legislation. Herein lies our 

[ 9 ] 


likes. That is not 
of respect for law 


are others that 
of their victims 






dangen We have nothing to fear at the hands of the out-and-out “wets.” 
They constitute a dismal and discredited minority. The compromisers are 
the bane that threatens the nation’s Prohibition policy. 

A very large number, I might say nearly all, of these friends repudiate the 
saloon, and if it were a choice between the return of the saloon and Pro¬ 
hibition, then they would choose Prohibition. But the menace of their posi¬ 
tion lies in the thought that light wines and beers are effectively divorced 
from the saloon and that the one can exist without the other. They say, “No 
saloon—it is gone forever—but give us light wines and beers.” 

Now, if it were possible to meet their demand I am still for Prohibition 
as prescribed by the present statutes. But it is not possible. It is not possible 
constitutionally. Intoxicating liquor is barred and little or no argument is 
needed to prove that so-called light wines and beers are of the proscribed 

WOULD DEFEAT PURPOSE 

Ex-President Taft and present Chief Justice of the United States Supreme 
Court says: “As a matter of fact I am not in favor of amending the Volstead 
Act in respect to the amount of permissable alcohol in beverages. I am 
not in favor of allowing light wines and beers to be sold under the Eighteenth 
Amendment. I believe it would defeat the purpose of the Amendment. No 
such distinction as that between wines and beers on the one hand and spiritu¬ 
ous liquors on the other is practicable as a police measure.” 

These “modifiers” for the most part hate drunkenness. Nobody defends 
drunkenness as a kabit. The poqr drunkard excites universal pity and almost 
universal contempt. What an infinite shame it is that reasonable men can 
be found to defend and plead for the stuff that makes drunkards! But these 
modifiers say thst three per cent is safe. I deny it! I challenge it! Some 
subjects will beome noticeably intoxicated on drink of low alcohol content. 
Some can take crink of much stronger proportion and reveal to the casual 
observer no bad effects. But what are the facts? 

Science tells us that alcohol is a narcotic, habit-forming drug, the first 
effect of which is to paralyze the higher centres of the brain. It may be 
quite unobserved by the man himself and the surrounding company, but 
even as the mkroscope will discover the bacteria that threaten, and the 
microphone detect the sounds inaudible, so science with its delicate and ac¬ 
curate instrumeits startlingly shows that no person can take into his system 
the small quantity of alcohol contained in a glass of light wine or beer without 
the sign of incident physical degeneration. 

INSURANCE STATISTICS SUPPORT 

This fact is, in the experience of men, demonstrated beyond all contradic¬ 
tion, and what science claims, life insurance statistics support. 

Arthur Hun:er, Chief Actuary of the New York Life Insurance Com¬ 
pany, said regarding the death-rate of policy holders in Germany during the 
war: “Our total mortality was 12 per cent better during the four years of 
the war, includirg war losses, than in the preceding 11 years of peace.” This 
largely resulted because of limitation in the consumption of alcoholic bev¬ 
erages. The Germans, of course, we all know are beer drinkers. 

The Life Extension Institute published a report of actuaries for 43 Amer¬ 
ican life insunnee companies showing the increase in 25 years in the mortality 
rate of moderate users of alcohol. The report stated that very moderate 
users increased their death rate by 18 per cent over the normal rate, moderate 
users with occasional excess by 50 per cent, and those who drank more than 

[ 10 ] 


two glasses of beer or more than one glass of whisky a day increased their 
death rate by 86 per cent. 

In an interesting investigation by the Actuary of the Northwestern 
Mutual Life insurance Company moderate users who were classed as “users 
of wine onfy not exceeding four glasses of light wine, or three of heavy 
wine daib ; and users of beer or light ale, not daily and not more than three 
in any one day,” showed a mortality of over 16 per cent greater than ab¬ 
stainers. Those who took five glasses of light wine daily were classed with 
tho^e who took whisky, brandy or gin, and their mortality was 50 per cent 
greater than that of total abstainers. 

Shall America go back? 

Long before Prohibition was written into the Federal statutes Prohibi¬ 
tion was the inexorable practice for the forces operating the great arteries of 
travel, and a thousand other equally important centres of industry where risk 
had to be reduced to the minimum and efficiency increased to the maximum. 

Labor Union Bulletin, of Newark, N. J., said: “Our employes have in¬ 
creased their efficiency 100 per cent, because of Prohibition.” 

ACCIDENTS IN PLANTS DECREASED 

A recent survey of managers of the big industrial coheerns throughout 
the country conducted by the Manufacturers Record shows that the laboring 
man does not need and is not clamoring for his beer. Ninety-eight and one- 
half per cent of the manufacturers answering favored Prohibition, and most 
of them ascribed to the absence of drink improved home conditions among 
their employees, fewer accidents, better care for women ahd children and a 
keener sense of responsibility. 

When decent people talk of bringing back beer and ^d ne without the 
saloon they, of course, do not realize that more than 90 per cent of the 
alcohol consumed before Prohibition was beer. They do nckt realize that if 
we bring back beer we will bring back more than nine-tenths of the old liquor 
traffic. They do not realize when they talk of letting America have wine that 
France, Spain, Italy—the countries which produce about sevenvtenths of all 
the wine in the world—show the highest per-capita consumption of pure 
alcohol. France, the country of wine, has one saloon to every 82 inhabitants, 
or every 20 families. France impoverished as she is, had a drink bill of one 
billion and a quarter dollars in 1921, and this money was spent, not on cock¬ 
tails, but on wine. 

They are ignorant of the fact that wine and beer contain proportionally 
the same alcohol as spirits—that if you place on the table before you half a 
pint of wine containing eight per cent alcohol, a pint of four per cent beer, 
a glass containing three tablespoonfuls of 42 per cent whisky, each contains 
the same amount of alcohol, which will have the same degenerating effect 
on brain and soul and body. 

UNDO ALL THE GOOD ACHIEVED 

Recent exposures of the wine-drinking habits of foreign countries should 
convince America that to introduce this form of alcoholism would bp to undo 
all the good we have achieved in our fight for Prohibition. Dr. Lyman Fisk, 
of the Life Extension Institute, says of beer-drinking: “It is norisense to 
claim that beer is a hygienic drink. Anyone who says that beer does not pro¬ 
duce a certain form of intoxication is wrong. They need only visit the saloon 
and watch the beer-drinker in farious stages of befuddlement or excitement. 
If beer does not intoxicate or produce any alcoholic effect, what becomes of the 
racial craving for stimulants which it is to satisfy? The heavy mortality 

[ 11 ] 


of brewery employees is sufficient evidence that beer, so far as its effect on 
masses bf men is concerned, is not a hygienic drink.” 

The superintendent of our Slum Settlement Work tells me that applica¬ 
tions for relief are reduced 50 per cent. She says: “The majority we now 
relieve are widows. The families in the districts we visit are better fed, better 
clothed, and better housed. Another significant feature is the decrease in 
death among young children. It used to be a common thing for reports to 
reach us of babies that had fallen from fire escapes and infants tha 4 ; were 
smothered on account of drunken parents, but not one such report has reached 
us during the last year!” 

AN ARMY OF WITNESSES 

Yes, something has happened. Our Women’s Rescue Officers bear testi¬ 
mony to the effects of prohibition upon the broken hearts of our city streets. 
Tfcese experienced workers cannot be deceived regarding strong drink’s or 
light wine’s relation to the social evil. They have a greatly simplified prob¬ 
lem with the drink factor eliminated. Whereas in the past hundreds came 
to the refuge of our homes as victims of the wine-room or saloon-parlor 
seductions, today drink cases are rarely found, and from the different calibre 
of cases coming under our care it would seem that the baser forms of the 
monster’s subtle designs cannot be sustained without the stimulus of intoxicat¬ 
ing drink. Shall America go back? 

Yes, something has happened, for the whole force of our Industrial Home 
managers bear witness that the old type of needy man is no more. There is 
need, but need begotten through drink is practically wiped out, whereas, 
formerly it was one of the most prolific causes of poverty. Our Relief De¬ 
partment and Labor Bureau contribute the same evidence, and every phase 
of Salvation Army actively unites in extolling the Prohibition Law as 
beneficent in its results. 

THRIFT AND FRUGALITY 

Since prohibition many of the inmates in our Industrial Homes have bank¬ 
ing accounts. Here are just a few figures which are representative of the 
many which the actual facts would supply. In eleven of our 88 institutions 
166 men have saved $6,880, an average of over $41 per man. Not a very large 
nest egg to be sure, but nothing short of phenomenal when it is remembered 
that before prohibition these men were in a state of perpetual destitution, 
and they could not under any emergency keep twenty-five cents in their 
pockets. 

The Continental and Commercial Trust Savings Bank of Chicago reports 
that since prohibition the deposits have increased ten million dollars. 

America with the eye of the world upon her has accomplished this thing 
by the votes of free men and free women. She has erected a new statue of 
liberty with which to enlighten and lead the people of every land. Is there 
one with hand ruthless enough, or with eye blind enough, or with heart selfish 
enough, 1o dare the attempt to extinguish that light and bring this noblest 
monument low? From the advanced moral standard taken among the na¬ 
tions, shall America go back? All the vile foes that have ever trailed their 
bloody tracks across street, or vale, or plain; all the cruel instruments of war, 
ancient and modern, that have drawn blood, torn flesh, maimed bodies and 
slain life; all the destructive powers that have ever sunk ships, devastated 
cities, plundered homes, and brought, down kingdoms—all in their massed 
aggregate have never occasioned one-half of the sorrow, the breakage, the 
ruin, the death, and self-destruction that has poured from the cauldron of this 

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Alcoholt firem ° Uthed ’ S or y-handcd, hydra-headed, diabolical monster- 

My God, Thou knowest it! My God, Thou knowest it! Shall America 
go back? 

f Drink has drained more blood, hung more crepe, sold more homes, 
plunged more people into bankruptcy, armed more villains, slain more chil- 



KEEP THE DEMON OUT FOREVER 


dren, snapped more wedding rings, defiled more innocence, blinded more eyes, 
twisted more limbs, dethroned more reason, wrecked more manhood, dis¬ 
honored more womanhood, broken more hearts, blasted more lives, driven 
more to suicide and dug more graves than any other poisoned scourge that 



A BLACK PICTURE 

,Can it be that men and women are so bewildered by selfishness, and beset 
by appetite, that they will take again into their national life, into the bosom 
of their homes, this baneful, loathsome, reeking, wrecking abomination? 

Shall America go back? 

Let me ask you to step back to the days of the wide-swung doors of the 
saloon. Let me tear the film from the eyes of men who are blinded by 
mercenary gains and selfish appetite. Let me point the mothers and fathers 
of every status of life to the handwriting on the wall of the nation, and bid 
you read what is written there. Such trembling strokes—such weak, shaky 
characters—such long spaces between the words; words ill-formed words 

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ill-spelled—words ill-placed. Such simple little sentences, but vastly com¬ 
prehensive—such faint impress, but never to be obliterated. Whose are the 
fingers that have wielded the trembling pen—the thin fingers—the misshap- 
pen fingers—the twisted fingers? Whose is the writing? Why, it is the 
handwriting of the children—the handwriting of the children, across the .wall 
of the nation—stretching from sea to sea! , 

THE PRICE IT PAYS 

Ah! You can hush to silence all other voices of nations and individual 
complaint; you may make mute every other tongue, e'ven Qf mothers of 
destroyed sons and daughters, of wives of profligate husbands; but let the 
children speak—the little children, the wronged children, the crippled children, 
the abused children, the blind children, the imbecile children, the nameless 
children, the starved children, the deserted children, the beaten children, the 
dead children! O my God, this army of little children! Let their weak 
voices, faint with oppression, cold and hunger, be heard! Let their little 
faces, pinched by want of gladness, be heeded! Let their challenge, though 
made by small forms—too mighty for estimate— be reckoned with! Let 
their writing upon the wall of the nation, although by tiny fingers, as stu¬ 
pendous as eternity, be correctly interpreted and read, that the awful robbery 
of the lawful heritage of their little bodies, minds, and souls may be justly 
laid at the brazen gate of Alcohol! 

SHALL AMERICA GO BACK? 

I hear the answer this afternoon coming as the voice of many waters from 
thousands of homes rehabilitated, from thousands of wastes reclaimed, from 
thousands of half-damned souls redeemed; from thousands of drunkards with 
manhood regained, from smoking flax and bruised reed, the chorus thrills 
on and on until it is caught up by ten thousand times ten thousand voices of 
faith and hope and love and liberty. Still on and on in jubilant song it wings 
its way. Mothers in the cottage sing it, the sick of the hospital join in it, 
the children on the school bench lift it, the convict in the prison cell catches 
it, the striplings of new character in this new day, shout it. 

Still on and on it rolls in volume through garret and palace, over hill and 
through dale—on and on, ever onward and upward until the dear ones in Glory 
catch this refrain and with all the redeemed, their faces shining, join their silver 
tones that send their echoes along the everlasting hills, fill all Heaven with 
gladness and ring in the eternal jubilee. 

AMERICA—AMERICA SHALL NOT GO BACK! 


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